These days, there’s barely a secular Jewish family who doesn’t have their own ‘frummer’ to contend with.

How an otherwise secular or irreligious person deals with their frum family members speaks volumes about that person’s value system and character. For example, if someone likes to refer to their observant relatives (and other observant people…) as ‘parasites’ and ‘scroungers’ that tells us that compassion, respect for a fellow human being and broad-minded acceptance and tolerance of differences are all sorely lacking in that particular individual.

Anyone who can dismiss a whole swathe of Jewish society as ‘parasites’ and ‘scroungers’ is simply mentally ill, and there’s no other way of putting it.

Then, there’s the people who aren’t that obvious about their dislike of observant Jews and Judaism. These individuals usually try to couch their criticism of their frum relatives in softer language. They’ll make comments about them looking like ‘penguins’, or mock them for not being able to wear anything except a white shirt.

They’ll also make a lot of side-ways comments about ‘unnecessary rules’, feeling sorry for the children who have to grow up in such ‘bigoted’ households, mutter about ‘narrow-minded religious people’ - but then they’ll hurry to reassure you that of course, they don’t mean you! You’re not like all those other narrow-minded religious hypocrites who like to think they’re better than everyone else just because they keep the Torah’s commandments! No siree!

While it’s a more sneaky approach, it’s also still mentally ill, unaccepting, critical and fundamentally dishonest. In the first case, at least you know you’re dealing with someone who hates you, and what you stand for. In the second, you have the uncomfortable feeling that something isn’t quite right here, but it’s much harder to pin it down.

And then we have the emotionally-healthy way of accepting a frum (or different…) relative: Easy-going acceptance. Love. Sincere interest in why they like their lifestyle, and what they believe it’s giving them. Respect for the other person’s ideas and opinions. Honest discussion, without barbed comments, criticism and insults.

In my life, I’ve experienced all three of these modes, and I can tell you that emotionally healthy people have a fundamental respect for a fellow human being that doesn’t depend on how that person looks, or how much money they make, or how many family events they show up to.

Of course, the opposite is also true: it also happens in the frum community that people don’t respect others just because their skirt is too short, or they don’t have a kippa on their heads, or they aren’t related to the right people.

We often don’t like to admit it, but this is also mentally ill behaviour.

So what does all this have to do with the last tests of emuna before Moshiach comes?

Great question!

I think all these small tests of emuna are really the BIG test of emuna we all have to pass before Moshiach comes: God is checking us out on the small stuff right now, the stuff that many of us don’t pay anywhere near enough attention to.

He’s looking to see:

Do we respect our fellow Jew, our ‘different from us’ relatives, or not?

Do we mock them, and their hopes and dreams?

Do we speak badly about them, and also crucially, to them?

Do we try to build them up, or try to tear them down?

Can we see the other person? Can we hear them? Can we get where they’re really coming from, even when it’s a very different place from where we’re coming from?

Can we accept that we’re sometimes wrong about things? That we don’t have all the answers? That maybe, we need to apologise? That God is running the world, not us?

These are all the small, but really big, tests of emuna that every single one of us is going to have pass at this period of time. And they're much harder to get through than most of us think.

Since I became frum over 2 decades ago, I've been continuously inundated with the message that we who are frum must be endlessly patient, compassionate, and forbearing with secular Jews, regardless of how they behave or treat us. We must bend over backwards and contort ourselves in every effort to never offend in even the slightest way.

But as society sinks lower, it's getting harder.

It's very hard to deal with people who have no sense of lashon hara (and who don't take kindly to you changing the subject or setting boundaries, no matter how sensitively and tactfully you do so). It's hard when you say something positive about the Efrat organization and your best friend since junior high turns away from you with a sneer and wrinkled nose and refuses to listen to your explanations like: "But the women contacting Efrat don't WANT to have an abortion; they felt pressured into it because of economics, and they're HAPPY to have the baby and the financial help...." because being pro-life means you are scum of the earth.

And so on. And everything you mentioned.

I don't mean that we should just drop all the compassion and walk around like self-righteous snobs (and neither do you).

But there is a reason why some of us happily ensconce ourselves in our little frum "ghettos"!

Reply

BenG

12/8/2016 04:07:22 am

Hashem would not speak to Avraham because he sent Lot too far away. On the other hand, R' Nehemya criticized Avraham for sending him away. I've seen sources that we should keep non-observant family members at arms length close enough that they can see the light, but not so close that they can pull us in the mud.

Fortuantely we have poskim who can tell us how close is appropriate.

R' Moshe Feinstein's ZTL tshuvah said one should only do kiruv to others if 1.) the environment is kosher (you can't go to a disco or reform temple to do outreach), 2.) One is qualified (suited) to do outreach. Otherwise "Distance your way from her.." (misheli 5:8) applies (which, in general, is for the majority.)--not to spite them but self-protection from deleterious influences.

Someone I knew family member was having a conservative wedding, and a R' Moshe Shternbuch was asked if they should/were obligated to go.

"he said that they had no obligation to go and it wouldn't accomplish anything by going. If there was a big case of shalom bayis involved, and they're under a lot of pressure, they could go to the hupa, but not the reception, but even then it was just a big waste of time."

Reply

BenG

12/15/2016 08:28:46 am

Just a correction "Hashem would not speak to Avraham because he sent Lot too far away. "

Meant to say Hashem would not speak to Avraham as long as Lot was in his household.